Battlefield 3 Review

Battlefield 3, the first numbered entry in the main Battlefield series since 2005, comes in hot with a brand new campaign, co-op missions and the top-notch multiplayer action fans expect, this time on consoles as well as PC.

The Pros

Absolutely gorgeous

Exceptional multiplayer with improved interface

Deep unlock system that constantly rewards the player

New co-op mode with good level of challenge

Some of the best sound design ever

The Cons

Nonsensical, boring single player campaign

Campaign does little to teach you the basics for multiplayer

Can't set up private/bot games

Battlefield 3 Review:

While the offshoot Bad Company series has dabbled in Call of Duty’s territory in recent years, Battlefield 3 is clearly Electronic Arts going all in on the military shooter war. Battlefield 3 offers everything a Modern Warfare title offers, from a dramatic single player campaign to a mission-based co-op mode to robust multiplayer with a carrot-on-a-stick unlock system. It stumbles in some places, but EA DICE has offered up a game that has it where it counts, and is potentially the first true competitor to Activision’s 800 pound gorilla of a franchise.

Let’s start with the stumbling. For the first time in a main Battlefield game, Battlefield 3 includes a full-featured single player campaign, complete with story and cinematic setpiece moments and everything. The trouble is, while the campaign throws as much stuff as it can manage at you, none of it is particularly involving or exciting. The story revolves around a Marine named Blackburn, who is suspected of traitorous conduct and spends the game narrating flashbacks of his actions to two interrogators who are either CIA or Military Police (it’s never stated for certain).

The flashbacks are the individual levels you play, and the interrogators doubt every single thing Blackburn claims. It’s an odd framing device, in large part because the two guys hound Blackburn with doubts about things that would have been part of military record due to other witnesses being around to corroborate the story at the time. Blackburn is either unaware of this or unwilling to defend himself, and the impression I was left with is that whoever wrote Battlefield 3 is not aware of the level of record keeping that goes on in the U.S. military.

Bland of Brothers

So the campaign doesn’t make sense. Big deal, the Modern Warfare campaigns don’t make much sense, either, right? But Modern Warfare is big, loud, and crazy like a Michael Bay film. Battlefield 3 is somehow smaller and more folded in, sort of like a TV movie of a Tom Clancy book. Things happen, some of them very cool uses of the Frostbite 2 technology, like collapsing buildings and such, but they never hit the level of spectacle that the Call of Duty games routinely occupy.

Battlefield 3’s campaign exists in a strange grey area between a blockbuster action film and a ripped-from-the-headlines documentary, and ends up feeling flat as a result. The Bad Company campaigns suffered from this to a degree, but the likeable characters and snappy dialogue of B-company carried you through. Battlefield 3 has no characters to speak of, although an attempt is made to make your numerous companions stand out at times. Still, when the inevitable casualties began to mount, I felt nothing but confusion as to which mildly sarcastic guy we’d lost.

There might be some redeeming value in the campaign if it helped teach you skills that would be useful in multiplayer, but it doesn’t even manage that. You never fly a plane in the solo game, you just ride along as a gunner in an F/A-18 in a level that plays exactly like a lightgun game. It even apes the famous AC-130 stage at one point, but instead of actively firing at your targets you spend much of the time pointing at them so other planes can take them out.

The only time you’re given actual control over a vehicle is in the tank sections, like the one shown off at E3 2011. These give some taste of the open nature of the best Battlefield maps, and are the only time the campaign manages to set itself apart from similar titles. Awkwardly timed QTE sequences are peppered throughout, as well, adding some insult to injury. It’s pretty to look at, and the sound design is second to none, but it’s a shame that the campaign didn’t play to the strengths of the franchise, namely the larger spaces and use of vehicles that have always set it apart from everything else on the shelves.

Where it counts

With all that said, any fan of the franchise knows that Battlefield is not about the campaign. The series is all about playing with other people in huge online skirmishes that involve every aspect of warfare imaginable, and Battlefield 3 is no exception. The multiplayer encompasses both the familiar competitive mode and a newly added mission based two-player co-op mode. Co-op is similar to Modern Warfare 2’s Spec Ops mode, but instead of numerous bite-sized tasks, Battlefield 3 offers six more involved and complex missions. They’re fairly length and highly varied in objectives, and have enough randomization to them that playing more than once isn’t a chore. Don’t expect them to be pushovers, either, because they do not skimp on the difficulty. Even on normal, you will not simply walk through them. Best of all, weapons unlocked in co-op counts toward your overall multiplayer profile. Given how important unlocks can be in the competitive arena, co-op can be used as a valuable place to XP grind a bit in relative peace.

Competitive multiplayer will be familiar to veterans of the series. Two teams go head-to-head on any of nine new maps. The classic Battlefield game type Conquest returns, in which teams try to control flag points in order to score points and deplete the enemy team’s reserves by “bleeding” their ticket count down to zero. The more points you control, the faster the bleed rate. Bad Company’s Rush mode has also been transplanted over, which sees the teams battling over pairs of M-COM targets. One team defends them, one team attacks them and tries to plant explosives on the M-COMs. If both are destroyed, the defenders fall back to a new pair until they either run out of fallback positions or they reduce the attackers’ reserves down to zero. Other permutations are present, such as Team Deathmatch and squad-based variants of Conquest and Rush, but you’ll find that the vast majority of players stick to the main two gametypes.

Finest Hour

Both primary gametypes are great, and at this point DICE has them honed to a fine art when it comes to designing their maps to support both. After many hours of play, I have yet to find any real bottleneck points in any of them, and they all feel nicely distinct from one another. The phenomenal Frostbite 2 tech lets almost any structure be damaged to the point of just leaving a skeleton standing, and there’s little more satisfying than blowing the wall out from in front of that sniper who’s been harassing your squad for the last few kills.

As always, vehicles of every kind litter the maps (with the exception of Operation Metro), from Jeeps to Infantry Fighting Vehicles to jet fighters. Most of them are easy to use, but Battlefield 3 continues the tradition of making the aerial vehicles extremely difficult to master. The jet fighters and helicopters take a high level of skill to fly effectively, and it would have been nice to have a way to practice with them. Inexplicably, the campaign lacks any piloting opportunities and there’s no way to create a solo game to tool around in, so you’re stuck trying to learn the ropes while under live fire.

If you’re just after the multiplayer, Battlefield 3 is a no-brainer. It has a scope and variety that simply doesn’t exist in any other multiplayer shooter. It can be tough to start out, and you’ll rage as you’re blindsided by players who know the map better than you and picked off by snipers in hiding places you didn’t even realize were there, but you’ll keep playing that “one more game” thanks to the sheer amount of things to do and the endless things to unlock for your soldier. The campaign is an all-around disappointment, but nobody in their right mind should let that stop them from picking up DICE’s finest multiplayer offering yet.

I can't believe I paid money for Bf3, what's up with these graphics? HDVGA? Activision knows what we like, MW3 looks great in black in white AKA monochrome. Dice and there HDVGA crap, HA! monochrome FTW!!!

Best battlefield game to date. Single player was disappointing but fun, the further I got into the game the more I liked it. Spec ops was ok as well, 6 missions and you unlock guns along the way that you can use in multiplayer. What takes the cake is the multiplayer experience, I've been playing this game since November 2011 and I'm still amazed at how great this game looks. The guns are about as realistic as they can be, range etc, and this is the first game I can honestly say; i can play the same map over and over again day in and day out month on end and not get sick of it. This isn't COD where you are able to master the maps and it becomes so easy your winning 30-3 every game, you may get a 30-3 in bf3 but you'll also have a lot of those game where you get 20-38.

EA has done a great job with this game, however I hope in the next installment they cut out the campaign and let us play the game against bots like battlefield 1942 and bf2 did.

My only real gripe about this game is Origin, EA is trying to be the next steam, they have a long long way to go before that happens.

And question for Adam, what's wrong with Tom Clancy? Some of us like that type of stuff. Bash less, just give us the facts.

Did you see BF3's new commercial where they boast about a vote with nearly a quarter million people between BF3 and MW3 that ended with BF3 the clear winner? I think this competition thing is quite humorous. They won with more than 2/3 the votes. I believe they are refering to the IGN Versus vote. It clearly shows that while MW3 is the better advertised and more popular game, core gamers care about BF3 more. Why complain about BF3 trying to compete with MW3 unless you're COD fanboy? Core gamers clearly care about BF3 more so it's not such a ridiculous competition.

i've played BF3. its a great game. love the graphics and online gameplay. online is better than mw3s online gameplay. campaign pretty good. i like that the fact you have to work as a team on online. if you want to be a lone wolf than go play mw3. 4/5 seems fair.

Battlefield 3 sucked. The graphics were plain, the gameplay was horrible, and it's the same exact game it's always been. How do YOU like it? You annoying little fanboys come the the MW3 page just to troll and talk trash.

Honestly, the campaign to me isn't that bad anymore. When I got the game the campaign did feel pretty bad. But, now I find the campaign to be quite excellent. I missed a lot the first time, but when you really listen well to the dialogue and everything, it gets really good. It's actually pretty in depth, even if they did take the interrogation thing from BO.

I don't get why everyone is complaining about the campaign, I mean sure it's no Call of Duty where hundreds of soldiers are shooting at each other in front of the white house where seemingly millions of planes and heli's are flying above, but I am glad it's not. Battlefield is about combining the realsim of the military with the realm of gaming, and they do that fantastically. The campaign is pretty fun so far, I'm only on Operation Guillotine, and it's has its moments of tension build-up to the all-hell breaks loose that Battlefield is known for. Yes, sometimes I wish that it wouldn't be so long and boring in some parts, but again the real military isn't all killing and shooting and it's worth the adrenaline rushing that you go through eventually. But of course, the Multiplayer is much more riveting and exciting then the campaign is, but to give my honest opinion i would rate the Campaign a 7.5/10 and Multiplayer and Co-Op a 10/10, giving the entire game (including graphics, sounds, and replay value) a 9.5/10.

Non-sensical and boring single player campaign?? well give it to a very jaded reviewer here to say so.i found the story pretty interesting.. And buddy U.S record keeping is something you obviuosly know NOTHING of...record keeping is pretty much run by a corporal from kentucky..trust me they often manage to screw up a cup of coffee in the morning much less my freaking pay records...screw ups abound in the US military record keeping 'review guy'..trust me i've been in the NAVY/ ARMY 8 YRS.please Stick to what you know, fat pudgy reviewer...

its plain and simple, Activision bought the 5/5 rating for MW3 and its obvious, they called out the game for being "the same as MW2" and gave it nothing really great to say about the game like they did about BF3...but hey look at G4's site, its been labeled with MW3 bull forever now, they got bought out....i have always played both series games, the BF series first and i feel in love with it, but they went away for a long time and i had to play some of the crap of duty games...MW1 was great, MW2 was good, after that it was gay, finally when BFBC2 came out i had the best game to play since BF2, and now with BF3. its on BI !!! but they did do some wrong things in it as well. i can comment on single player, i never tried it never will, and real BF player never will its not what the series was about so why add it lol. the MW series or really all COD series games will either need to step up their game or fall off the earth...i hope they fall!!! BATTLEFIELD FOREVER BABY!

this review is shinannigans written all over it they dropped 1 point off for one small part of the game single player campaign and bots wtf? at most the game should have gotten a 4.5/5 cause the single player was kinda weak but bf games were never about single player so thanx for being sheep and trying to be like cod... they should just stick to what bf is insane awesome multiplayer action what burns my biscuits is that they have the nerve to talk smack about games that are exactly the same as previous and mark them down but mw3 feels like a dlc for mw2 and it gets 5/5 with nothing realy new added to it the new weapon rank system was jacked from bf but "its new" pleez the weapons are so vanilla its like they work for dryers ice cream they all deal damage the same and the death streaks last stand being the prevelant bs perk you get to use ur main weapon come on then assassin perk is way op add blind eye and its way worse than ghost perk in previous games and it gets a 5/5 i think integrity now days is bought and sold like a comoddity on the stock exchange you got the cash you get the reviews you want imo i think they should just start doing player pols like they do for politics and let the populace give honest reviews by voting on aspects of the game and then tally up the restults and let the numbers do the talking instead of some aging host trying to keep the boss happy by swallowing their pride and giving payed for by (company name here) reviews

I hope i'm not wrong in saying this, but I am probably one of the few people that have played both MW3 and BF3. I have to say that because overall, i don't understand why you gave BF3 a lower score than MW3. Don't get me wrong MW3 is a good game but BF3 is amazing simply because it's running on a better engine and in my eyes, has better multiplayer than MW3. Though campaign wise, I agree with you on some points. There are some cheep deaths and the story is cliched, but I didn't think that it was boring at all or took itself to seriously. It was meant to be a hyper-realistic story so like I said earlier, I dont think it takes itself to seriously. MW3 on the other hand is running on (correct me if i'm wrong) a five-year old engine and gameplay that, while it has stood the test of time, is growing old and hasn't changed virtually at all. So in all you've got to wonder which one is going to stay around longer and leave a bigger impact on the gaming world. But overall I think that you should rate the game depending on how much you enjoyed your time with it.

Infinity Ward: "Let's copy and paste everything we put in MW2 and Treyach put into Black Ops like the game engine, perks, Killstreaks, and guns! And let's add weapon profinancies, even though they're the same thing as weapon attachments, WE'LL BE NUMBER ONE ON THE CHARTS!!!"

EA: "Let's invent an entirely NEW engine especially for BF3, but that's not it, LETS BRING BACK JETS AND PRONE STANCES, *gasp* LETS ADD DRONES!!! WE'LL BE NUMBER ONE ON THE CHARTS!!!"

I like how Activision paid off Xplay to give BF3 a bad rating lmao it's so obvious. Normally you give games with cut/paste skins a 3/5 but oh no we cant do that to CoD because its a 13 year old money maker